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SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS A National Maritime Museum in San Francisco A new National Maritime Museum, a thing long dreamt of by those concerned with the West Coast's heritage in ships, is now to be set up in San Francisco, the West Coast's leading seaport city. It will embrace the ships of the State Marine Park at the Hyde Street Pier, and will reach inland to create a museum center in the Haslett Warehouse (SH, No. 5, pp 26-29). It includes, according to plans still to be made final, a supportive relationship with the private San Francisco Maritime Museum and its Cape Horn square rigger Balc/utha and other ships. Congressman Phillip Burton, whose plan this is, has secured the agreement of Governor Brown to turn over the State properties involved to the Federal Government, and productive meetings have been held with the director and trustees of the San Francisco Maritime Museum . There are at the moment four alternative plans for the whole new museum establishment, which must be closely integrated into the plans of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, of which it forms a part, and the plans of the Port Authority, who own three piers in the area and have been trying to build a breakwater to protect the historic ships at the Hyde Street Pier. Burton's efforts were responsible for the establishment of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. He points out that from the beginning, this national park which safeguards for all time the natural environment of beaches and cliffs outside San Francisco Bay was conceived also to open to public learning and enjoyment the cultural environment of the city's waterfront inside the Bay. The city's main heritage is in ships and the sea, he has said, and the great interest the public has in that heritage should be safeguarded. Burton has a long-standing interest in the national sea heritage. When Mrs . Lyndon Johnson made a state visit to the Philippines, he personally made sure that she went to visit the hulk of the American bark Kaiulani-and arranged that the hulk be pumped out and floated for the occasion. The remains of the Kaiulani, all that could ultimately be recovered, which the National Society holds in trust for the American people, are expected to be exhibited in one of the new National Maritime Museum buildings. It is perhaps of more than passing interest that Harry Dring, Director of the State Marine Park ships, Karl Kortum, Director of the San Fran-
cisco Maritime Museum , and Thomas Soules, Director of the Port Authority, were all shipmates together in Kaiulani in her last voyage under sail. Kortum, who has long worked with Burton on history's interest in the waterfront, Mayor George Moscone, who is a noted supporter of the work, and William Whalen of the Recreation Area met with your reporter in January this year to confer on the gift to San Francisco of another National Society ship, the Vicar of Bray, last survivor of the California Gold Rush of 1849. Slated for ultimate installation in the Haslett Warehouse, she would now become part of the new National Maritime Museum. The united interests and support that attend the birth of the new institution are impressive, and bode well for its future . But it seems proper, in this account, to let Harry Dring, who has the keeping of the wooden ships at the Hyde Street Pier, sound the warning note of challenge that con~ronts the new Museum : "You can't defer drydocking," says Dring, "because worms don't care about politics." National Trust Names Maritime Director The National Trust for Historic Preservation has announced the appointment of Harry C. Allendorfer as Director of Maritime Preservation. Captain Allendorfer came to the Trust from the National Bicentennial Administration, where he was concerned with maritime matters and worked particularly on Operation Sail. A Maritime Preservation Committee was formed at the Trust a year ago, in October 1975, chaired by Waldo C.M. Johnston of Mystic Seaport. Other committee members are: Peter Manigault, Charleston newspaper publisher; Rear Admiral Walter F. Schlech, Jr., Chairman of the National Society; James R. Shepley, President of Time, Inc.; and Ralph L. Snow, Director of the Bath Marine Museum . Appointment of this committee followed many meetings over the past seven years, particularly after the introduction of legislation calling for a National Ship Trust. The National Trust asked that the Ship Trust be set aside in view of their own interest in this field . The National Trust has also announced ''the development of a nationwide inventory of historic watercraft, an assistance program for watercraft preservation projects and a planned national conference on maritime preservation ."
New Museums The Essex Shipbuilding Museum was dedicated August 14, honoring the 4,000 registered vessels launched into the little creek this Massachusetts town fronts on, north of Cape Ann. The L.A. Dunton at Mystic, Lettie G. Howard at South Street, and Effie M. Morrissey, subject of a major ship save reported in this issue, all were born here. For further information on the new museum which has long been a project of peopl~ in the community, write Jim Witham President, Essex Historical Society, Eastern Avenue, Essex, MA 01929. And in Baltimore, the Brown's Wharf Maritime Museum has been opened in a harborside warehouse of 1822. The museum traces the growth of the port and all its trades, and is the project of a maritime family, the Ruckerts of Ruckerts Terminal Corporation.
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Floreat Clearwater! Clearwater finished her annual October pumpkin sail in New York, coming south from Hudson, through Albany, Saugerties, Kingston, Poughkeepsie, Beacon, Cold Spring, Ossinning, Dobbs Ferry and Yonkers. Her parent body, Hudson River Sloop Association, Inc., holds its tenth annual meeting in Peekskill December 5, from 12 noon on, concluding with the traditional Sloop Dinner at 6:30. The Restoration's admirable North River Navigator reports on the early successes, ensuing troubles, and stronger-than-ever recovery of this organization, which as the world knows is dedicated to improving the life of the Hudson River today. Troubles came in the fourth and fifth years as the founding educational purpose was watered down and the original peopleoriented approach nearly abandoned. Today twenty active Sloop Clubs support and take part in the work, which flourishes . For membership in the Restoration, including the monthly Navigator, send $5 (student), $10 (individual), $15 (family) in tax-exempt dues to HRSR at 112 Market Street Poughkeepsie, NY 12601. '
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